


Reprobate

by MayAChance



Category: Pacific Rim (2013), Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Chrome Brutus - Freeform, Gen, Gipsy Danger - Freeform, Jaegers (Pacific Rim), Kaiju, Kaiju War (Pacific Rim), Kicking Kaiju Ass, Los Angeles Shatterdome, Original Jaegers - Freeform, Panama City Shatterdome, Romeo Blue - Freeform, Solar Prophet - Freeform, Vulcan Specter - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-17
Updated: 2018-08-17
Packaged: 2019-06-28 14:06:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15708750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MayAChance/pseuds/MayAChance
Summary: When Reprobate appears from the Breach in the summer of 2018, the Jaeger Program snaps into action to prevent the Category III kaiju from making landfall off the coast of Central America.A look into the average Kaiju Event in the Golden Era of the Jaeger Program.





	Reprobate

**Author's Note:**

> I was trying to write a Shifter AU for Pacific Rim (which obviously didn't work) and this is a variant of the third prologue I've written for the damn thing.

One moment, the Shatterdome was as quiet as it came, nothing more than the gentle hum of machines at work. The next, the Breach alarm whirred to life, yellow lights flashing across each Bay, a call to attention, a call that danger was in the wind.

A mechanical voice began to blurt: “Attention all personnel. This is not a drill, repeat not a drill. Yellow alert. Yellow alert. There is movement in the Breach. All personnel report to your assigned stations.”

Once quiet, the Shatterdome burst to life like an explosion had been unleashed in the ‘Dome. Engineers darted across the Bay to reach their assigned Jaegers, drivesuit crews ran for the drivesuit rooms that would be in use within the day. The sound of feet pounded against the concrete floor, and the build up of tension across the Pacific Rim was finally released.

Yancy and Raleigh Becket, who had been dozing on one another’s shoulders in a quiet corner of Lady Danger’s Bay, came to life as the Shatterdome did. Not at all, and then all in a rush.

When the alarms woke them, they needed not speak to know what they were doing.

Within minutes, the K-Watch command center (nicknamed the war room) was filled with officers and Rangers. The Los Angeles Shatterdome was home to four Jaegers. Romeo Blue was the oldest American Jaeger, piloted by a pair of identical twins that had served in the United States military. Bruce and Trevin Gage greeted the Beckets at the war room’s door, identical grim faces. With their matching bronze complexion, buzz cut hair, and military uniform, the only way to tell them apart was the odd scar over Bruce’s right eye.

“Team Danger,” Bruce greeted, tight shoulders angled towards his brother. “Come on. We’re just getting data from K-Watch now. They’re thinking Panama City or somewhere along the Mexican coast.”

The pilots of Salem Flight were seated at a large round table. Autumn Hunter and Hunter Armstrong often joked that they should get married and switch surnames, though neither one felt anything more the sibling kinship to their co-pilot. When Raleigh took the seat on Autumn’s left, she nodded at him. Hunter gave a grin, “Team Danger. Good to see ya’. Wish it didn’t have to be here.” Even when they were both sitting, Autumn was significantly shorter than Raleigh, and Hunter hardly an inch taller than her.

“You too,” Yancy told them.

As Bruce and Trevin took the seats opposite Team Salem, the pilots of Chrome Brutus arrived from a back door. Ilisapie Flint and Zeke Amarok were Inuit cousins from Nunavut. Ilisapie took one look at the data flashing on the TV screen and whistled. “That’s quite the toxicity rating.”

“Kaiju codename Reprobate, just a hair smaller than Yamarashi,” announced a K-Watch scientist, entering the room. “Emerged at 1408 hours on August 4, 2018. Bogey is currently hovering over the Breach, but expected to choose a direction within the next hour, and make landfall within six days. Expected danger areas: California. Mexico. Guatemala. El Salvador. Nicaragua. Costa Rica. Panama.” She flicked through a tablet, swiping toxicity readings onto the TV screen. “Bogey’s coming in at a two on the Geiszler Scale, above Onibaba but below Malefactor in toxicity. Signature indicates that its a Category III. We’ll have more information once the bogey breaks the surface and we get eyes on it. You’re in for a long wait, Rangers.”

“Aren’t we always?” Trevin’s bronze face quirked into an easy grin rather than the serious face both twins normally wore.

Marshal Jones strode into the room, face as serious as always. “Rangers,” she greeted. “I’ve been in contact with Vancouver, Panama, and Lima. We’re still waiting on better estimates from K-Watch, but it’s looking like we’ll have Team A off LA, Team C off Cabo, and Team B in Panama City, adjustments made given Reprobate’s path. Chrome, you’re departing for Lima as back up at 1600. Romeo and Danger, you’re staying here. Be ready to welcome them. Chrome, dismissed.”

Kaiju killing was more waiting than anything else. If you tried to engage a bogey too far off shore, it would have no difficulty evading you, so pilots set up along the vulnerable coastline and let the bogey come to them.

Reprobate would be the first alert for Ilisapie Flint and Zeke Amarok as active pilots. The Canadian Jaeger had launched only a month previous, a Canada Day celebration for the whole Pacific Rim. While both of Team Chrome were older than Yancy and Raleigh, the brothers held seniority over Zeke and Ilisapie, with an engagement and kill already under their belts.

“Hope to hear you on the comms,” Zeke grinned over their shoulder, a wolfish grin painting his features.

“We’ll be there,” Trevin confirmed. “Let’s see if we can make this K-Day a victory.”

“Better yet,” Autumn commented, “a pre-K-Day victory.”

After several hours of infrequent pings and quickly-cooling tea, the Rangers were getting antsy.

“Looks like he’s chosen a course,” Yancy called, flicking through data on a tablet. “Set off due east about twenty minutes ago. Sydney’s running Specter to Hawaii, and Anchorage is sending Aurora.”

Bruce nodded confirmation. “Reprobate’s reached a max speed of seventy kilometres an hour, could make landfall in Hawaii less than three days. K-Watch thinks it’ll go for Honolulu before heading onto Central America.”

While Bruce examined the most recent footage of Reprobate, Trevin dozed in his chair. On a screen, an ever expanding circle surrounded Reprobate’s last known location just north of Pagan Island in the North Mariana Islands. Yancy and Raleigh sat on a sofa shoulder to shoulder, watching the circle expand with each passing moment. The clock on one wall ticked the hours by, Rangers adjusting around it. Each dozed briefly amidst examining the K-Watch data.

As time went by, varying people came in and out of the room. At the twelve hour mark, Jones ordered a rotating shift of wakefulness, and sent all the Rangers to bed.

“You sleep at all?” Autumn murmured to Bruce, who pressed his lips together.

“A little.”

Yancy glanced at his watch. “It’s been almost a day since the last ping,” he frowned. “The bogey could be over half the way to Japan by now, and we’d have no idea.”

The next ping came thirty-six hours after the last. “Wake Island,” a K-Watch informed the gathered crew. “Almost directly between the Breach and Hawaii. We’re expecting Reprobate to make landfall in another day and a half, in Hawaii.”

Trevin flicked his attention to the LA LOCCENT officers. “Are Specter and Aurora prepped?”

Tendo Choi nodded. “They got in about twelve hours ago, will be deployment ready within two hours..”

Sure enough, another thirty-four hours had the six Rangers gathered around the comms. On the other end, Vulcan Specter’s pilots carried out an easy dialogue with those of Solas Aurora. The Australian team was made from two high school sweethearts. Levi King and Linh Nguyen were Brisbane natives, only a year older than Raleigh. In contrast, the Quebecois Cedric and Maxime Langellier of Solas Aurora were skimming the older end of the Ranger-age spectrum in their mid thirties. The two teams had been doing simulations together since Specter launched almost two years previously.

“We just got a ping from a commercial airline. Bogey is three hundred kilometres west of Hawaii. Both Jaegers are prepped for the neural handshake and in position.”

On the comms, Levi was teasing Cedric over one thing or another. The older Ranger dealt with it gracefully, but the huff from his younger brother gave away both their opinions.

Bruce nudged his brother. “Good to know we’re not the only ones.”

As Reprobate got closer, it pinged at multiple stations and appeared on all sonar. Around the room, they came to the same consensus: everything was better with a bogey on sonar.

On the Miracle Mile off Honolulu, the only populated city left in the islands, Specter and Aurora stood as stoic guardians of the once-paradise.

“LOCCENT, we have visual contact on the bogey,” Maxime announced as the right hemisphere of the lead Jaeger. “Specter, aim for one of its eyes if you get the chance. Mouth too. No potato dropping.” He bore the thick accent of someone from rural Quebec.

Linh huffed over the comms. “Still don’t know what that means, Maxie.”

Right on time, Reprobate appeared from the ocean at 1019 hours on August 7, a grey behemoth with five eyes and the flat head of a komodo dragon.

“Damn,” Levi muttered over the comms. “LOCCENT, the bogey is ugly as a pile of rocks.”

The LOCCENT commander in chief Hawaii let out an amused huff. “Copy that, Specter.”

“Watch that mouth, Specter,” Maxime ordered. “Looks toothy.”

Sure enough, Reprobate had the huge maw of a komodo dragon alongside the flat head. Despite its lithe power, the kaiju seemed unwilling to approach the two Jaegers standing guard, instead lashing through the water at the edge of the island. As Reprobate moved, both Jaegers followed, keeping between the kaiju and the vulnerable coastline.

As Reprobate considered its options, the clock ticked past the seventy-two hour mark.

After an hour of waiting for Reprobate to make a choice, both teams were tense. “LOCCENT, permission to engage the bogey.”

“Explain, Aurora.”

Cedric took over for his right hemisphere. “At this rate, it’ll tire us out before we get any blows in. If we send him off, we have at least another day before it makes landfall anywhere along the Rim. That’s a full day to analyze footage from this engagement, get a better sense of its capabilities, and prepare. We can’t wait him out forever. If we wait too long, we’ll go into the danger zone and it’ll get a clear shot at the Islands as soon as the Drift breaks.”

There was a pause from the Hawaii LOCCENT.

“Not a bad idea,” Raleigh commented, brushing shoulders with his older brother from the round table. “If they can get a tracker in him, we’d have a guaranteed position.”

“Aurora, you have permission to engage kaiju codename Reprobate. Specter, hang back in case Reprobate goes for broke.”

“Copy that,” Maxime replied.

From there, the engagement was brief. Specter managed to stick Reprobate with a tracker that would ping every time it broke the surface, and Aurora took out at least one of its teeth with one knife. Neither Jaeger took anything more than superficial damage, though Specter’s red and orange paint job would need touch ups from where Reprobate had slashed the paint away.

“He’s sprinting! Specter, see if you can cut him off.”

“Copy,” Levi growled, with Specter surging through the warm Hawaiian waters after the grey monster, but it was too late; Reprobate dove for the depths, streaking past the Australian Jaeger and heading for the open sea between O’ahu and Molaka’i.

K-Watch scientist Dr. James Rojas cursed under his breath, a red blip moving away from Honolulu. “It just hit eighty kilometres an hour. At that pace, it could make landfall here in just over thirty-six hours.”

Raleigh gnawed on his lower lip. “Is that a new record?”

“Not quite,” James replied. “‘Fraid Lalochezia has it beat for top speed, but Reprobate is damn close.”

Bruce nodded, checking his watch. “We should all get some sleep in, make sure we’re rested when Reprobate is closing in.”

“Amen to that,” Marshal Jones nodded. “Rangers, you’re dismissed. Get some rest, be back here at 0500 tomorrow morning.”

Some might have needed gratuitous amounts of coffee to rise at such an early hour, but the Rangers had no such liberties. While it was great for waking a person up, it also could cause headaches and high blood pressure, neither of which were acceptable risks when an alert was in progress. Most survived on herbal tea and suffering.

When Reprobate continued in a steady eastern route without hinting towards north, the three Jaegers moved south: the Panama City Shatterdome had the capability of launching as many as twenty Jaegers at any one time, so the six were far from a challenge for the Shatterdome.

They were met by the pilots of Sentinel Orca, Josephine Byrd and Gabriella Espinoza, at the local K-Wait room. “Good to have you,” Josephine told them.

The Canadian Jaeger stood almost twenty metres shorter than Romeo Blue, making him the shortest Jaeger in the fleet. Unlike Romeo, however, Sentinel was a marksman rather than a brawler.

Just like the Jaeger himself, his pilots were diminutive marksmen. In his right hemisphere was Josephine Byrd, a metis woman from East Vancouver with years of training as a marksman with the Canadian military. She and Gabriella Espinoza had been recruited straight from the Canadian Armed Forces by Bruce and Trevin. Gabriella, a Latina immigrant who had lived in central Toronto since the early 90’s, had served alongside Josephine for years.

The married couple that piloted Tambo Tasmania grinned over, half-dressed in their own drive suits. Derek Oliveira, shorter than Maria Santos by a scant half inch, waved at the twins with a wicked grin adorning his features. “Team Romeo,” he cheered. “It’s been two long!”

Bruce grinned, eyes lightening at the sight of the two Mark I Rangers. “Absolutely,” he agreed, embracing the Latino man while Trevin hugged Maria. “You two have been busy!”

Tambo was, of course, the only Jaeger to be caught dancing on multiple occasions. Just a month before, Maria and Derek had performed the Argentine tango with Illapa Malami and Mishael Perka, the unrelated pair that piloted Solar Prophet. A video of the two Jaegers dancing had gone viral within minutes, and even the issued demerits could not dampen the four pilots’ delight.

“Dancing is hard work,” Maria drawled, patting Bruce’s shoulder. “You boys need to do the West Coast Swing sometime.”

Autumn scoffed. “You _have_ to do something from Iron Man.”

Trevin rolled his eyes, joining the group. “Later. Right now, we have a kaiju to kill.”

Illapa lifted a glass of water in a _hear-hear_ motion.

“The only good kaiju is a dead one,” chimed in Mishael, sitting next to his co-pilot. “Nice to have you here, fellas and ladies.” He nodded at Josephine and Gabriella, who gave a lazy wave back.

Panama’s commanding officer was a Colombian brigadier general by the name of Santiago Hernandez, strict and unyielding in matters where Jones would have let it slide. He entered the room from a side door, interrupting all discussions and introductions. “Bogey has cleared the hundredth meridian and is travelling directly along the fifteenth parallel. We’ve issued a high red alert from Acapulco to Panama, and extreme red for El Salvador, Guatemala and southern Mexico.” The alert information on a nearby screen displayed the red and burgundy segments of coast through Central America.

“Team C will be coming up from Lima to guard Panama, Team B,” he nodded at Tambo’s pilots, eyes flickering over Salem’s and Prophet’s, “will be split: Tambo, you’re heading for Guayaquil as a precaution.” Runoff from the city was leaving a trail that drifted through the Galapagos Islands and curled north over the hundredth meridian, mingling with the trails from Tapachula, Monterico, and San Salvador. “Salem and Prophet will be dropped in Salina Cruz. Team A, you’re dropping off Montericco. All Rangers and Jaegers need to be prepared for transport within the hour. Dismissed.”

“Yes sir,” Mishael said, and he and Illapa took off running for Prophet’s bay.

Raleigh gave the commanding officer a brief nod, head dipped low for a half second, Yancy at his side before the two Alaskan Rangers took off for Danger’s temporary drivesuit room.

Most Jaegers fought with their fists and a variety of cannons, and Danger was no exception. The power contained in her dual I-19 Plasmacasters was more than enough to blow a hole in an unarmored kaiju as easily as Raleigh could walk. Her engines to muscle strand ratio gave her precision, and the hyper-torque drivers installed in her limbs gave her the strength for skull-crushing blows. Painted deep blue and accented with her glowing red nuclear core and red highlights, she bespoke her very name: the Lady of Danger herself.

Danger’s drivesuit crew were a group of six people that had graduated the Academy with Yancy and Raleigh. Megan, whose cousin Shane worked with Jasper Schoenfeld in Jaeger Tech, grinned at Raleigh while pulling pieces of armor for their containers.

“Bout time, eh?” She commented, chest plate screwed into place. From the northwest, her family had fled to Shane’s in Montana when Karloff’s thousand kilometre alert went out.

He sighed. “Tell me about it. I hate the long ones. It might be more time to prepare, but it’s also more time to stress.”

Megan attached another piece of armor over Raleigh’s shoulders, and another tech pressed the spinal clamp over his spine. Then she handed him his helmet, and they were off.

Before every drop, the very action of walking from drivesuit room to Conn Pod was enough to sync Yancy and Raleigh. Steps clinked against metal floors. Even the clank of Jaeger preparation faded away as two brothers prepared to become one person.

They clicked their feet into place, connected their helmets to the oxygen lines, and gave the signal: “LOCCENT, this is Lady Danger, ready for the big drop.”

“Copy that Danger One,” Tendo replied from LOCCENT. “Releasing Conn Pod in three, two, one.”

The drop was something that never ceased to send their heartbeats through the roof, but soon the Conn Pod clicked into place on Danger’s shoulders. Gears shifted, metal rearranging itself so that the Conn Pod was held in place for the engagement.

Raleigh’s eyes flicked to the kaiju clock: five days, four hours, twenty-nine minutes. Then he glanced at the prep timer. Fifty-two minutes. A decent speed.

Through Danger’s speakers came the mechanical voice of her program. “Conn Pod attached. No errors detected.”

“LOCCENT, this is Lady Danger ready for departure.”

General Hernandez’s voice came through the comms, clear and calm. “Danger, this is General Hernandez. You are cleared for lift-off. Your orders are to drop on the Miracle Mile off Monterrico and hold the Mile. Estimated time of arrival is 2345 hours.”

“Yes sir.” As the right hemisphere, Yancy took lead on communications with LOCCENT.

Travel in Jaegers was a dull affair: for several hours, the pilots would be stuck in their Conn Pods without entertainment aside from the chatter on the comms. Even the possibility of a bathroom break was long since out the window.

Yancy flicked off the external output on their mics, and settled against his rig, letting it bear his weight for him. “You good?” He asked.

“Yeah,” Raleigh confirmed. “What about you?” Just as his brother had done, he allowed his knees to go weak, held up by his rig alone.

“Yes.”

“Do you ever get nervous about these?”

Yancy glanced at his younger brother with a gentle smile, like the sun over the southern mountains at summer’s height. “I think everyone does, kiddo.” His brother huffed at the nickname, but Yancy ignored it. “To be scared is normal. To face that fear is to be brave.”

Only fourteen weeks before, when Lalochezia had emerged from the Breach and made a beeline for Taiwan, Horizon Brave was destroyed in combat. The Mark I Jaeger, once piloted by Quo and Jinji Jin, might have been reparable had her pilots survived the brutal assault. Quo had lost his battle to internal bleeding only twelve short hours after Empress Offensive and Mountain Dragon took down Lalochezia, while his twin sister Jinyi had lost her life after seizing on the operating table.

Banishing all thought of the Chinese Jaeger, Raleigh and Yancy slipped into silence. Around them, Danger’s Conn Pod buzzed with the gentle sound of mechanical pieces, sliding against one another in an endless dance.

“You’re certain?”

“Yes.”

While Raleigh dozed off in his rig, Yancy kept a careful ear on the comms. A stream of information came through the comms, changes in speed and location as Reprobate swam closer to the coast. Even though it served as a distraction, the sonar displayed the locations of civilian vessels in comparison to both Danger and Reprobate. As the kaiju made for a large blip, an ocean liner, LOCCENT murmured over the comms.

“The MS Champion. She’s evacuated, but only just.”

A chorus of “Thank God”s went up from LOCCENT, and Yancy echoed the prayer in his mother’s French. Reprobate tore through the blip, and it disappeared, the shattered remains of the boat sinking to the depths of the ocean floor.

A third of the way to Monterrico, Yancy and Raleigh switched off on nap duty, the older brother resting against his rig and preparing for yet another long engagement. If Reprobate made for Monterrico or one of the surrounding cities, Reprobate would be their third engagement.

Unlike most Jaeger teams, Team Danger had made contact with a kaiju on their first deployment. Yamarashi had made for a Los Angeles, a city protected by the concrete walls of the Los Angeles Shatterdome. While Sentinel Orca had stood guard over the Channel Islands, fending Yamarashi off from Santa Catalina Island, Lady Danger and Salem Flight had dropped just off the Los Angeles River. As Danger held the hulking kaiju in place, Salem had unleashed the full-throttle of her fire-inspired weaponry directly onto Yamarashi’s stomach. In the end, both Jaegers were credited with the kill. Reprobate was their second deployment.

Of the thirty-one teams that had been on active duty since Scissure’s destruction in 2014, only fifteen had engaged a kaiju, and twelve bore a kill stamp.

Above the ocean of La Liberta, El Salvador, Raleigh rose Yancy from his nap.

“Yance, we’re about twenty-five minutes off.” His brother grumbled in the back of his throat, but pulled himself upright, flicking the external comm output back on.

“LOCCENT, this is Danger One, requesting permission to activate the neural bridge and begin calibration procedures.” Yancy’s voice was calm through his drive suit’s speakers.

Within a moment, Tendo was on the line. “Danger, you have permission to initiate the neural bridge.”

“Copy that.” Yancy and Raleigh flicked levers, syncing in preparation for the neural handshake. “Initiating neural handshake in three, two, one-” the Drift overcame them.

The first time they drifted, minds winding around one another, they thought it would be like coming home. But the drift was uncontrollable, two minds combining every memory together until they floated along a river, memories on either side but unable to hang onto any, and unable to let them go. _Let everything else float by_ , Dr. Lightcap had told them. _Focus on something you’re fighting for if you need an anchor_.

Like the impossibly codependent pair they were, the focused on one another. Of the whole Drift, the only thing either of them remembered clearly was wondering what a hummingbird cake was, before the drift finally overwhelmed them and dragged them under.

But the drift had become _yancyraleighlady_ , everything that made them _raleighyancy_ pulled together in one. The Driftspace might not have been home years before, but the Drift had changed that.

When the drift washed over them, they thought of Jazmine and the life she would never have.

“Neural handshake, stable,” said Danger’s AI.

“LOCCENT,” said one of them, neither sure which.

“This is Lady Danger, neural handshake holding steady. Ready to begin calibration procedures,” said the other.

“Copy that, Danger. You are clear to begin calibration procedures. Careful of the choppers.”

Raleigh opened his eyes, and looked out at the warm waters off the El Salvadoran coast. So late in the evening, both water and land were dark. Yancy looked through him, and they watched the shoreline together.

Together, they raised their left arms, and Danger moved with them, reaching one arm into the sky. Then the other followed, fingertips reaching together. As they tapped together, their feeling reverberated from Danger’s metal nerves and iron skin to their own fingertips. They moved each limb individually: arms, legs, and last of all they twisted their head from side to side.

At their chest, just below their joint heart, their fist slammed against the palm of their hand.

The last pieces of metal shifted into place, and Yancy and Raleigh were one.

“Calibration, complete,” the AI intoned. “Estimated time of arrival: 2339 hours. Time to arrival: estimated twelve minutes.”

Yancy glanced at the location display, eyes tracking Reprobate’s movements on the screen, its path a thin line of red from the coast off Acapulco to its location, almost fifty kilometres off El Paredon, having circled away from the coast before turning back in. The predicted path, in thin black, led straight to Monterrico, Guatemala in a dull arch. But Yancy frowned at the monitor, tipping his head to consider it.

_The curvature_ , they thought. _Why continue to follow the gulf when it takes excess energy, you’ve already moved in the wrong direction, and it’s easier to go for a smaller target._

“LOCCENT, what’s K-Watch saying about Puerto San Jose?”

There was an indistinct hum on the other end. “K-Watch just mentioned it,” Tendo replied. “You’re dropping twenty kilometres off the coast there, which is in between him no matter where he goes.”

General Hernandez’s voice came through the speakers, replacing Tendo’s. “Lady Danger, this is General Santiago Hernandez. Your orders are to drop on the twenty kilometre mark off Puerto San Jose and hold the Miracle Mile for the city. Do not allow Reprobate to circle around you to Monterrico.”

“Copy that, General,” Raleigh intoned. “Who has rank?”

The ranked Jaeger of any drop made the calls, chosen based on the bogey’s capabilities and the experience of the other Jaegers. They chose everything from the positioning of each Jaeger to the fighting styles they used.

“Romeo does.”

“Copy that,” Hunter said over the comms. “Romeo, where do you want us?”

Trevin’s voice came over the comms - the younger brother was the right hemisphere pilot, with a personality better suited to giving commands than Bruce’s. “Danger’s taking point from the south; cut him off if he starts to run, but otherwise stay parallel to the shore. We’ll be in the middle, Salem on our right. You keep the bogey from making a run on Puerto San Jose.”

The drop crew released Danger into Guatemalan coast, their knees bending to absorb the shock of their impact before they stood, west towards Reprobate’s incoming path.

“LOCCENT, estimated time to intercept?” Bruce questioned.

“Current time is 2351 hours, bogey is estimated to arrive at 0012 hours tomorrow morning. You’ve got about twenty minutes,” reported Romeo’s LOCCENT officer, a military woman who had served alongside Bruce and Trevin.

There was a pleased hum from Salem. “I like it when we’re early.”

“Focus,” Romeo chided. Team Salem quieted down, watching for the telltale trails of water that would signify Reprobate’s arrival.

When the kaiju did approach, it was with black water streaming off its lizard-like body. Just as the clock ticked onto August 10, Reprobate came to a halt in the open waters. The flicking of its tongue drew Raleigh’s attention, a forked line testing the air. To their right, Romeo let out a mechanical groan as Trevin warned, “Preparing gatling chest.”

A moment later, the Jaeger unleashed a veil of fire onto the kaiju.

Reprobate roared, lashing back and forth in the water and eyeing the Jaegers with a hesitant gaze. Its forked tongue flicked in the air as it sank deeper into the dark water. From three angles, the huge kaiju was caught in the brilliant gaze of three Jaegers, each prepared to do what had to be done.

For the better part of four hours, Reprobate swam up and down the Guatemalan coast, as far north as El Paredon and as far south as Buena Vista. By four in the morning, Salem was snarling; even the slightly-less-aggressive Autumn was fully prepared to tear Reprobate’s head off were their bare hands. “Let’s rip his fucking head off already,” she snarled.

Amusement coloured Romeo’s voice when they replied. “No ripping, but you can cut his head off if you want.”

“So long as you use your flame swords,” the other brother added.

Salem Flight, named for the famous American witch-burnings - both Yancy and Raleigh shuddered at the thought - in Salem, Massachusetts, was armed with two flame swords. Notches on either side of the sword filled with a combustible, which then lit on fire.

In the brief moment of distraction, Reprobate picked up speed, swarming for the open ocean to Danger’s left.

“Fuck!” The brothers spat in unison, picking up speed to cut off the monolith. “LOCCENT, bogey is making a run for it.”

“Copy Danger. Get between it and Monterrico. Salem is filling in the gap, Romeo backing you up from behind.”

Yancy grunted, “Copy,” as they picked up speed, Danger’s own weight propelling her forwards.

The strongest legs in the world weren’t enough to catch the huge Kaiju, but if they could distract it. “Charging plasma cannon,” Raleigh hissed, energy building in his right arm, tracing up his elbow until a green light flashed in the edge of his vision. The blue light shot forwards, nailing Reprobate in its leathery back. “Direct hit. Preparing to engage.”

“Watch for those claws,” Tendo warned.

“Copy that.”

Reprobate turned to them, tail lashing back and forth as if it were an angry cat. “Aww,” Raleigh crooned at the kaiju. The letters slurred together into something condescending. “Cute widdle kaiju wanna friend? Cute widdle kaiju doesn’t know how to _make_ friends!”

“Like a baby kitten,” Yancy agreed, his own syllables soft and curved. “Angriest kitten I’ve ever seen.”

The fight turned into a game of tag, the kaiju dancing around Danger as they took on defensive positioning. Arms raised in a fighter’s pose in front of them, they turned with Reprobate’s movements. Just as Salem caught up to them, Reprobate lunged towards them, teeth snapping at Danger’s armored forearms. With a war cry, Autumn and Hunter lunged the final hundred metres, sword connecting with Reprobate’s armored back. The kaiju roared, letting go of their arms to spin towards Salem, and then back towards Danger.

Moments after Salem slipped into position, Romeo joined them.

Romeo Blue might have been the first American Jaeger, the first non-prototype to take down a kaiju, but the Jaeger was old tech. He couldn’t cover distance the way Danger or even Salem could. Romeo had to rely on his jumphawks for that.

While Danger tackled the kaiju’s front end, Romeo and Salem bracketed its two sides.

The thick, lashing tail met its end to Salem’s flaming swords, dropping to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean like the dead weight it was.

Reprobate roared once more, moving to snarl at Salem with its ferocious maw. Sharp teeth snapped at Salem, and the Jaeger thrust one sword into the creature’s mouth.

From Reprobate’s other side, Romeo released a spray of gatling fire, and as the kaiju turned they captured it between their huge forms, a present for Danger to kill.

“Hurry it up, Danger!” Trevin snapped, falling back on years of military service.

In a flash, they raised their dual Plasmacasters, the crackle of energy coursing through their arms as the cannons loaded. “Firing, now!” and the bursts of blue hit Reprobate’s unarmored belly.

The kaiju fell still.

 “Signature?” They asked in unison, voices layering against each other’s, playing off one another.

Tendo’s voice crackled over the comms. “No signature. Kaiju Reprobate declared destroyed at,” he paused, “0528. Good job, Becket Boys.”


End file.
